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Thursday, 19 July 2012

“You didn’t build that.”

Obama’s disgusting public dismissal of enterprise and entrepreneurship--“If you’ve got a business, you didn’t build that; somebody else made that happen"—has spawned derision. Rich Lowry describes it as a "statist" attack on the "self-made man."

The Obama theory of entrepreneurship is that behind every successful businessman, there is a successful government. Everyone is helpless without the state, the great protector, builder, and innovator. Everything is ultimately a collective enterprise. Individual initiative is only an ingredient in the more important work when 'we do things together.'... For that most American figure of the self-made man, exemplified most famously by Benjamin Franklin and Abraham Lincoln, President Obama wants to substitute the figure of the guy who happened to get lucky while not paying his fair share in taxes. What a dreary and pinched view of human endeavor. What a telling insight into his animating philosophy. The Obama formulation goes something like this: Steve Jobs couldn't get to work every day without roads; he couldn't drive safely on those roads without a well-regulated system of driver's licenses; ergo, the San Jose, Calif., Department of Motor Vehicles practically built Apple.

Here's the full quote:If you were successful, somebody along the line gave you some help. There was a great teacher somewhere in your life. Somebody helped to create this unbelievable American system that we have that allowed you to thrive. Somebody invested in roads and bridges. If you’ve got a business -- you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen. The Internet didn’t get invented on its own. Government research created the Internet so that all the companies could make money off the Internet.

To Bill J, you may be right, Steve Jobs couldn't have achieved what he did if born in the slums of Calcutta. All the more reason to allow a middle class to grow out of those slums, by the same system that allowed the Western middle class to rise from the Industrial Revolution: capitalism. It's capitalism that gives opportunity.

TWR, you are correct there. Judge Holden can change her tag name, but her underlying message pattern is the same. This makes her very dumb. Indeed she's really dumb as she works at the Ministry of Women's affairs. Her qualification was in gender studies, which is not real studies at all.